This blog provides short, easy-to-digest summaries of recently published research relating to bullying, peer-aggression and peer-victimization. It is maintained by staff and students from the School of Psychological Sciences and Health at the University of Strathclyde.

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October 24, 2013

Predicting homophobic behaviour at an individual and social level.

This is the second review to be completed by one of my current final year dissertation students. Many thanks to Stephanie Donoghue for reviewing this recent article on homophobia.

This study examined possible predictors of students’
engaging in verbal use of homophobic behaviour. Individual measures of empathy,
perspective taking and classroom respect were three domain general factors
looked at in the belief that individuals scoring low on these would be more
likely to engage in homophobic behaviour. Importance of identity, number of sexual
minority friends, parents’ sexual minority attitudes and messages in the media
were all examined under sexual orientation specific factors as influenced by
the broader social context. In the present research, prejudice and bullying
were also assessed to examine whether their presence had a strengthening effect
or reduced the relationship between domain general factors and sexual
orientation specific factors in predicting homophobic behaviour.

These authors recruited 618 high school students,
9th to 12th grade (around 14-17 years old) to take part in the study. Students were
required to complete survey questions relating to both general and specific
factors and homophobic behaviour over the preceding 30 days.

Multiple domain general factors:

Lower scores on empathy were seen to be associated
more strongly with prejudiced behaviour and lower scores on perspective taking
was associated more so with bullying. However both of these factors had
significant indirect effects in predicting students’ engaging in homophobic
behaviour. Such findings supportthe cognitive
nature of bullying: specifically, that lack of empathy and perspective taking
can result in higher levels of bullying, prejudice and homophobic behaviour.

Sexual orientation specific factors:

Sexual orientation identity predicted stronger
sexual prejudice and homophobic behaviour. This supports social identity theory
whereby in-group members engage in behaviour that differentiates themselves
from the out-group minority to consolidate their belonging to the sexual majority.
Being friends with young people from sexual minorities was not associated with
homophobic behaviour but did predict lower levels of prejudice, thus supporting
the theory that being in contact with minority groups may lower intolerance.
Finally, results indicated that parents’ attitudes toward members of sexual
minorities had an effect on whether young people engaged in homophobic
behaviour. However, contrary to the belief that positive media portrayals
change behaviour, images in the media did not (in a roundabout way) predict
homophobic behaviour.

These results suggest that it is important not to
isolate one reason in examining causes behind homophobic behaviour. Instead,
this study examined multiple factors in combination.Results suggest that although homophobic
behaviour has been shown to be a manifestation of both prejudice and bullying,
there are other fundamental factors converging to predict involvement in this
type of behaviour.

Interestingly, these results indicated that media
images did not predict homophobic behaviour in students. This may shed light on
the important role that peers and parents play in engaging with homophobic
behaviour. On the other hand, the measure used here could be viewed as being
problematic because the role of media was examined using only one question. More
of a thorough analysis might have been achieved if the researchers had
developed more detailed questions.

The current research points towards ways of
combating or countering the use of homophobic language used as banter in the
school environment by suggesting that more can be done by both teachers in the
classroom and parents at home to open up and speak more about respect towards
members of sexual minorities.